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Understanding Human Security: Empowering Individuals and Expanding the Horizon of Potential Threats

This article explores the core tenets of human security and its distinction from classical state sovereignty. It discusses the bottom-up perspective of human security, emphasizing freedom from fear and want, as well as dignity. The article also explores policy applications and the analytical tool that human security provides for understanding insecurity and interlinkages between disaster, conflict, and global insecurity. It highlights the importance of closer engagement with affected communities and rethinking the relationship between private and public spheres. The challenges and complexities of operationalizing a human security approach are also examined.

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Understanding Human Security: Empowering Individuals and Expanding the Horizon of Potential Threats

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  1. Human Security, Concept and Practice Dr Mary Martin, LSE CN4HS, Kavala August 2014

  2. Understanding human security • Core tenets of human security • different from classical state sovereignty • expanding the horizon of potential threats • incorporating a bottom-up perspective empowering individuals • FREEDOM FROM FEAR, • FREEDOM FROM WANT • DIGNITY

  3. A range of policy applications • HS provides analytical tool : a different way of seeing insecurity • Recognising interlinkages between disaster , conflict and global insecurity • different responses - integrating individual needs and developing, disaster-resilient communities • People not as passive beneficiaries but as architects of recovery and resilience . • Not victim culture but emancipation--Closer engagement with affected communities • a rethinking of the relationship between private and public spheres

  4. Overlookeddimensions • Downside risks rather than an expansion of freedom in general – the distinction between HS, HR and HD • A threshold approach • Elementary rather than all human rights. • Social arrangements for safety – how does human security fit with other imperatives? •  Human security as a guide amidst multiple legitimate objectives or a cross-cutting theme? • The dilemma of trade-offs

  5. Reshaping the social safety net and the political contract An inclusive society The affective dimension – hope, optimism, managing expectations Hidden or unspoken insecurities HS Challenges in this region • Different levels and types of vulnerability • Managing the transition • Legacy: Security services; arms • Crime and porous borders • Unemployment, and creating legitimate occupations

  6. Clashes between principles: - the need for trade-offs : eg human rights versus bottom up , universal norms vs particularist cultures ;-legitimating political authority : who decides? - Operationalising a human security approach 6 Human Security Principles: Primacy of human rights, legitimate political authority, bottom-up; effective multilateralism, transparency, regional focus • addressing complexity • Grey areas : victims or perpetrators • Coping mechanisms and survival strategies – heroic or harmful? • Presence of ambiguous and contradictory markers of human security

  7. Technical assistance or political intervention? HS is deeply political Outcomes are important not just process Examples: ‘Rule of Law’ Conditionality Challenges of the approach 2... • Coping with messy outcomes • Undesirable and unintended consequences • No neat edges • Ownership of process and results • Balance between universal templates and local translation Are there limits to a human security approach ? - how to address the blurring of private and public spheres -Localism versus universal values

  8. Human Security questions • What should be the role of the state? • Eg on natural disasters • IHL and principles of neutrality and independence constrain intervention • R2P and crisis response • Legitimacy, damage to civilians, aftermath • Food security, climate change, arms control • traditional discourse , state competition and geo strategic considerations undermine collaborative action • Risk of securitisation - biopolitics

  9. Bottom-up approach • How do we know which are the good bottoms? [Javier Solana 2004] • Going beyond the usual suspects in civil society • Inclusive approaches – marginalised groups, even spoilers • Women and young people • Relationships and networks are crucial • Danger of romanticising the local

  10. Human Security as Method Good research is research conducted with people rather than on people changing the perspective of the researcher to achieve a different ethical position a different kind of knowledge unleash social, political processes of change

  11. HumanSecurity Methodology • Disconnect between new ways of conceptualising security and the application of suitable investigative tools • Distinctiveness of HS ? lived experiences of security issues • Requires more attention to people within the research process • respondents are more than means of access to ‘objective’ facts • Using research process to redress power imbalances

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